Boxing icon Muhammad Ali has come out fighting against Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and his controversial call for a ban on the entry of all Muslims into the US.

Trump's comments have been widely condemned in the states from across the political spectrum with President Barack Obama calling for unity in the wake of the 2 December San Bernardino shootings which left 21 dead and were inspired by Islamic State terrorism.

"True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so-called Islamic jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion," he added.

Trump also attracted criticism last week when he challenged Obama to name a Muslim sports star (implying there were none). Muhammad Ali was an obvious example of one such Muslim sports personality along with scores of others.

Ali, who has spent less time in the spotlight since he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984, was previously a regular fixture on US television where he became a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, a major force in the movement for black civil rights.

The boxing champion became a prisoner of conscience in 1971 when he refused to fight in Vietnam on religious grounds.

Ali, who became an outspoken advocate of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s and converted to Islam in 1975, also used his statement to speak out against the Islamic State (Isis/Daesh) and to say Islam had nothing to do with the attacks in Paris on 13 November.

In the statement broadcast on US television, Ali, 73, said: "Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people's views on what Islam really is.

"I am a Muslim, and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world.

In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful
Cast truth at falsehood
The Koran: Chapter 21, verse 18

The Holocaust was an inside job, Hitler was a Jew - Jews and traitor Americans perped the 911 attacks, not Osama bin Laden and nineteen crazy Arabs .. abortion is genocide.

Martin Luther & Coretta King and black Secret Service man Abraham Bolden were in the firing party on the Grassy Knoll, when US President John Kennedy was shot from ambush in Dallas Texas, Nov. 22, 1963.

The Luther Kings had accepted Mrs Kennedy's gracious invitation, to dine with her and the President in her home at the White House a short time before.

Which I say demonstrates the folly of treating blacks like human beings, as well it remains the genesis for the warning all blacks get, be to be no closer than one rifle shot to me and my household at any time!

False Moslems who fail to hurl truth, are described elsewhere in the Koran as "lower than the beasts of the field," I just call 'em wogs. When this creature "casts truth" and I wanna hear all about the LK's in Dallas, then he is a Moslem.

I've made my living, Mr. Thompson, in large part as a gambler. Some days I make twenty bets, some days I make none. There are weeks, sometimes months, in fact, when I don't make any bet at all because ...